


The Five Stages of Neighborly Affection

by AlannaLioness, phonecallfromgod, youshallnotfinditso



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Hijinks & Shenanigans, Identity Porn, Minor Violence, Multi, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlannaLioness/pseuds/AlannaLioness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonecallfromgod/pseuds/phonecallfromgod, https://archiveofourown.org/users/youshallnotfinditso/pseuds/youshallnotfinditso
Summary: Between Matt being back from the dead, Nelson & Murdock 2.0 and a fancy Manhattan apartment from his (former) sharky boss, Foggy feels like he's doing pretty well keeping the vigilante nonsense in his life to a minimum.Or he was until he moved next door to Tim Drake.





	The Five Stages of Neighborly Affection

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is mostly Netflix Marvel canon compliant up to the end of season two of Jessica Jones but has a pretty loose canon connection to the rest of the MCU and the DC Comics and DCEU ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Podfic Available Here](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2018/The%20Five%20Stages%20Of%20Neighbourly%20Affection%201.mp3)

 

**1\. Denial**

Foggy’s had a weird couple of years. He’s switched firms, he’s become the head of an entire vigilante law department despite his protestations, Matt came back from the dead and then married him. It’s been weird.

But even Foggy’s own undead husband can’t quite top the weirdness that is Jeri Hogarth gifting him one of her New York properties out of the blue.

Well, it’s not completely out of the blue since Jeri’s finally decided to shutter Hogarth & Associates in order to spend what might be her last few good months abroad. And yeah it sucks that he’s about to lose his job, but like, he can’t exactly begrudge someone who’s dying wanting to spend her twilight days island-hopping and hooking up with babes. He especially can’t begrudge her when on the last day of Jeryn Hogarth & Associates she passes him an envelope containing the address of an apartment and a set of keys despite his immediate refusal.

“Don’t be so noble, Franklin,” she’d said. “It’s a wedding present. Besides, I don’t need it.” Which was true, but there’s not exactly protocol when your boss, who is the sharkiest shark to ever shark, hands you a multi-million dollar top floor condo in one of the most desirable buildings on Central Park West.

“This is so fucking nice,” Marci says, the first time Foggy brings her to the apartment. “And so fucking unfair. I got you that job at HC&B.”

“Uh, my excellent opening argument on the Punisher trial got me that job. Besides, you should have jumped ship when you had the chance,” Foggy says, flopping onto the red velvet couch while Marci looks out at the view and pokes around the living room. Jeri had left it to him fully furnished, and while it’s completely not his taste, he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Marci snorts at that. “Oh please, we all know she left this to you because you’re _oh so ethical_ , it had nothing to do with jumping ship. Though I guess your ship is pretty much sunk now, Foggy-bear. Not that I doubt that you’ll have tons of fabulous offers, what with being New York’s premiere vigilante attorney.”

“Actually…” Foggy says hesitantly, and Marci whirls on her heel, aghast.

“Tell me you’re _not_ ,” and then when Foggy doesn’t say anything, “Franklin Nelson you better not be thinking about starting Nelson & Murdock again. Do you not remember the part where you almost destroyed your relationship working together? And you’re married now, jesus christ Foggy that’s just a recipe for disaster.”

“I know, I know, it didn’t work last time but it’s— Matt’s different now. You can’t go through something like that without your priorities shifting. Besides, I don’t wanna be pigeonholed as the vigilante guy for the rest of my career.”

Marci sighs like he’s being oh-so-difficult and flops down on the couch beside him. “Ugh, fine. But don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong.”

Foggy snorts. “Please, you’d _love_ that.”

“You’re right, I would,” Marci says, looking around again. “This still is not fair, though. This place is gorgeous, and it’s not your style at all, and it’s not like Matthew can even appreciate it.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m giving you first dibs on anything you want.”

Marci sits up straighter. “You are _not_.”

Foggy shrugs. “It’s not my style, and Matt can’t see it, plus you did get me the job, so if you want something speak now or forever hold your peace. You’re in charge of getting it out of here, though.”

Marci lets out an excited little shriek and hugs him hard. It’s a long couple of hours as Foggy trails Marci through the apartment making a list on his phone of what she wants, mostly art but a few furniture pieces here and there, including the red velvet couch.

“Where do the stairs go?” Marci asks. “Is there an upstairs?”

“Nope. Rooftop terrace,” Foggy says.

“Well be careful, don’t want our dear Matthew to go walking off the edge.”

Foggy rolls his eyes and enjoys the irony that the rooftop terrace is one of the real reasons he was able to get Matt on board with this whole ridiculousness in the first place. Matt had thrown a bit of a fit about the idea of moving out of Hell’s Kitchen (even if really they were only a few blocks away). But he did have to admit it was pretty hard to be a part-time vigilante when Foggy didn’t even have a balcony to make a quick exit or entrance from.

Matt has been a lot better about the Daredevil stuff since his miraculous return from the dead.

“I mean, I wasn’t _actually_ dead,” Matt had protested. “I did not come back from the dead. This is an important distinction and I need to know that you know that.”

“Oh, you mean like your ex-girlfriend who did actually, very literally, come back from the dead?” Foggy said and Matt had shut up after that.

Ironically, Foggy could actually credit a good portion of Matt’s newfound work-life-vigilantism balance to everyone’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, who Matt had been absolutely _horrified_ to realize was a teenager.

“I mean, he’s just a kid! He could get _killed_ doing this stuff,” Matt had ranted one night having just gotten back from his first up-close encounter with the guy, still half in his stupid bondage gear suit while Foggy sat up in bed and watched him pace. “And the martyr complex on this kid, you know he actually told me that if he has his abilities and does nothing, then bad things are happening _because_ of him?! He’s going to completely burn himself out and end up in a dangerous situation with a mentality like that!”

“Hmm,” Foggy had said.

“What?” Matt asked, stopping his pacing.

“No, please do continue, it’s extremely refreshing to hear these arguments not coming out of my own mouth for once,” Foggy had said, and Matt had very firmly shut his mouth and in the morning had sheepishly mentioned over breakfast that maybe he could cut down a little bit on the vigilantism, just to set a good example for the kid. And besides, it wasn’t like there was any real shortage of vigilantes in New York City, what with the Spiderkid and Jessica and Luke, plus Batman and his associated crowd stop over from Jersey all the time. Even Danny Rand managed to not be totally incompetent once in a while.

Anyways, with the rooftop terrace in the mix it’s not that hard to convince Matt that they should accept the place, and they finally manage to get fully moved in about two weeks after Foggy lets Marci have her pick of the original decor.

“Last box,” Foggy says, hefting a white Banker Box labelled ‘Office Stuff’ onto the kitchen island. He pulls off the lid to double check though, since they’ve already had some interestingly mislabelled boxes — Matt’s freaky ninja senses just do not apply to home goods, apparently.

(Or rather, like Matt had confessed to Foggy soon after his triumphant return, the amount of concentration required for his second life was just too high for him to sustain all the time. He still had heightened senses, but without high levels of concentration it was easy to mix signals and get confused about all of the input his brain was receiving. Which didn’t exactly explain the kitchenware in the box labelled ‘bedroom,’ but did explain Matt’s tendency to rely more on his cane or his hands when he was tired.)

“Oh babe, this is all your stuff,” Foggy says, recognizing Matt’s braille printer and a handful of framed photos from his office. Mostly shots from their wedding, which had been a lowkey courthouse kind of affair. The paperwork had been an absolute fucking nightmare though. Turns out things are difficult when the person you’re trying to marry is legally dead according to the state. And that was on top of all of the paperwork Foggy had had to file when Matt had first risen from the grave.

Foggy loves Matt so much, but he doesn’t pretend that the timing of their marriage didn’t have more to do with the fact that spouses didn’t have to testify against each other than his dreams of a spring wedding.

That’s easy to forget though as he looks down at the pictures of them, Matt’s face lit up and Foggy barely holding back tears. Foggy thinks it’s absolutely precious that Matt insists on having a few of these in his office, despite the fact that he can’t really enjoy them.

Matt’s drifted over from where he was putting things in the pantry, draping himself over Foggy’s back. “Hmm, which photo is that?” he asks, his breath ticklish on the nape of Foggy’s neck where his hair is just starting to grow out.

“Can’t you tell by the frame?” Foggy teases.

“I can,” Matt says, kissing the side of Foggy’s face, right beside his ear. “But I’d rather have you describe them.”

“I’m putting the ring on your finger,” Foggy says. “You look very handsome, like almost unfairly handsome if you ask me. I look pretty good too, but my chin is a little squishy because I’m trying very hard not to cry.”

“But you look happy?”

“Very happy,” Foggy says, setting the frame on the counter and reaching into the box again as Matt starts very determinedly kissing a trail down Foggy’s neck.

Foggy’s on the verge of giving into Matt’s advances, especially since, well, they need to christen the new apartment after all, when he realizes what he’s holding.

“Um, Matty?” Foggy says.

“Mmmm?” Matt replies distractedly, his left hand starting to slip just under the fabric of Foggy’s shirt.

“Is the New York State Bar Association aware that you’re alive? Because I’m pretty sure your qualifications are null and void upon death.”

Matt’s hand freezes. “Uhhhhhh,” he says.

“Ugh, okay, I’ll call their office,” Foggy says, setting Matt’s law degree back in the box and leaving Matt pouting against the kitchen island.

As it turns out, trying to prove that you are in fact still alive despite reports to the contrary is not exactly something you can do over the phone, and Matt will have to go in person to Albany with all his documents in order to reinstate his credentials. Matt tries to insist that he can do the whole thing in one day, but Foggy suspects that it’s better to err on the side of caution with this kind of bureaucratic nonsense and books him a hotel for three days.

“So you’ve been practicing illegally for how many months now?” Foggy asks, feet up on the raw edge coffee table that painfully clashes with his old IKEA couch they’d brought in to replace the original red velvet Marci had laid claim to.

Matt frowns, considering. “Only eight….well, more like almost nine. Nine months.”

“Nine months,” Foggy echoes. “Remind me why I’m reopening a law firm with someone who was practicing disbarred for nine months?”

“Because you love me,” Matt says matter of factly. “Also I didn’t get _disbarred_ I was just, you know, un-barred.”

“Matthew Murdock you are a menace,” Foggy says as Matt comes to join him on their shitty couch in their gorgeous new apartment.

“Mmmm, am I? Am I mischievous? And miraculous? Melancholic? Magnificent?” Matt says, punctuating each of his adjectives with a kiss until Foggy really has no other choice but to melt under his warm spotlight of affection.

“Motherfucker?” Foggy supplies cheerfully.

“Something like that,” Matt laughs, pulling himself into Foggy’s lap.

“Do you really want to do this on the couch? We’ve never had so many beds,” Foggy says, tilting Matt’s chin down between his thumb and forefinger.

“Five bedrooms,” Matt says thoughtfully, unbuttoning Foggy’s shirt.

“Technically one’s an office,” Foggy says.

Matt snorts. “That’s never been an obstacle before.”

“Touche,” Foggy says, giving into Matt because really, he’s never been able to resist.

In the morning Foggy sees Matt to Grand Central for his train to Albany and then meets with one of the clients he’s trying to woo from Hogarth & Associates for the soon-to-be reincorporated law offices of Nelson & Murdock.

Foggy actually likes the vigilante law stuff more than he’d ever expected, and not just because of his own personal investment, but he’s always up for a new challenge and it would be nice to diversify his portfolio a little bit more. Especially if he could get in with _Wayne Enterprises_. Okay, okay, it’s not _Wayne Enterprises_ proper, it’s not like he’d be anything more than twenty five degrees of separation from Bruce Wayne, but it’s a strong subsidy of _WE_ and would be exactly the kind of client that could help Foggy and Matt rebuild a diverse clientele for Nelson  & Murdock 2.0.

All in all Foggy feels pretty good about the meeting, the petite dark-haired woman he’d met with shaking his hand firmly and saying they’d be in touch, and he’s in a good mood on his way home.

While technically not a penthouse suite in the traditional sense, Matt and Foggy’s new place is on the top floor, and the elevator opens up into a small tasteful foyer with Matt and Foggy’s place on one side, and the apartment which makes up the rest of the top floor on the other. Neither Foggy nor Matt has met their neighbors yet, and Foggy’s honestly a bit terrified. He’s already getting weird looks in the elevator from the other tenants, like they can smell the middle class on him despite his newer properly tailored suits.

Which is why it’s a huge relief when Foggy steps off the elevator and catches sight of some teenager standing outside the door of the other apartment. For a second he honestly thinks it’s a delivery guy, but then the kid punches something on a keypad beside the door and a little mechanical voice says _door lock engaged_ , so Foggy figures he must actually live there.

“Oh, hi,” the kid says, turning and catching sight of him. Foggy would peg him for about seventeen or eighteen, despite the fact that he’s wearing a Columbia university polo shirt that Foggy’s never seen on anyone under the age of thirty-five. “You must be the new guy?”

“Ha, yeah that’s me. I’m Foggy. My husband Matt and I just moved in.” Foggy gestures across the hall at his door, even though obviously there’s no way he could mean anywhere else, what with the two entire apartments on this whole floor.

The kid nods, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. “I’m Tim,” he says, and holds out a hand for Foggy. That takes him a bit by surprise, Foggy taking a second to switch his keys into his left hand so he can accept the surprisingly strong handshake.

“Hey, you go to Columbia?” Foggy says, gesturing at the crest on his shirt.

Tim nods. “I just started. Double major in computer science and economics.”

“That’s awesome,” Foggy says. “I went to law school there. Word of warning, if you’re ever thinking about taking Punjabi, Dr. Saluja is a notoriously hard marker.”

Tim’s lip quirks. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Anyways, I won’t keep you. But if you, you know, need a cup of sugar or whatever, feel free to pop by. Maybe we could have you and your folks over for dinner sometime?”

“Oh,” Tim says with a pause. “My dad doesn’t— I live alone, actually.”

Foggy blinks for a second, trying not to let the surprise register on his face that his neighbor is a college freshman who is apparently loaded enough to have a top floor Central Park West apartment all to himself.

“Oh, well, alright,” Foggy says finally.

“Yup,” Tim says.

And there’s a long awkward moment while Tim waits for the elevator and Foggy tries not to look like he’s frantically trying to get into his apartment so he can be embarrassed in private.

“I mean, that’s not exactly an unusual assumption to make,” Matt says over the phone a few hours later, Foggy stretched out on his back in bed.

“I guess just good thing it didn’t turn out his parents are gone, you know?” Foggy says, having personally had to witness one too many occasions of people asking Matt about his own parents. “Anyways, enough about my drama, how did things go in Albany?”

Matt groans loudly, and not in a fun sexy way.

“Awww, I’m sorry babe,” Foggy says. “Maybe next time we don’t go running into the jaws of death and then we don’t have to create a flimsy paper trail for you just being misplaced in the medical system?”

“You were the one who brought me my suit for running into the jaws of death,” Matt retorts.

“Yes, because if the option is Matt does a stupid thing in kevlar or Matt does a stupid thing in a _very_ snug NYPD t-shirt, I’m team kevlar.”

Matt sighs into the phone like he does when he doesn’t want to argue but he knows that Foggy is right. For a lawyer Matt doesn’t actually like to argue much, which Foggy had chalked up mostly to the fact that arguments in court had rules and logic, unlike their kitchen or their office or their bedroom where Foggy considered all bets off and was playing to win.

“Anyways,” Foggy says, trying to defuse. “I guess if all else fails you can play the blind card.”

“Foggy!” Matt admonishes. “That’s horrible.”

“Are you telling me that the New York Bar Association is a paragon of accessibility?”

“Fair point.”

They chat for a while longer, Foggy catching him up about his meeting and Matt reminding him that he promised Karen they’d get lunch sometime after they’d finished moving.

“Oh hey, Fog, would you be able to do me a favour?” Matt asks as they’re wrapping up their call, in that casual way he does when he’s pretending to be spontaneous.

“What is it?” Foggy asks cautiously.

“I think I left my other work phone with my other stuff, would you be able to bring it into the apartment and just keep an eye on it? Let me know if anyone calls?”

Matt’s other work phone was what he liked to call his vigilantism burner phone, the crappiest cell phone you could get that still had voice-to-text capability. They’d decided it was probably safest and most convenient for Matt to keep his Daredevil stuff up on the terrace, locked into a weatherproofed plastic chest that was intended to keep chair cushions dry.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Foggy says, rolling off the bed. “I’ll go grab that and then I’m gonna turn in.”

“Thanks sweetheart,” Matt says, so stupidly sincerely and wonderful that Foggy only begrudges him a little bit.

“You’re welcome, but if Spider-Man calls I’m definitely letting it go to voicemail, I don’t care how pressing he thinks it is,” Foggy says. He’s a nice kid and all, but Foggy feels a bit uncomfortable with being responsible for the secret identity of a teen vigilante after he’d had to step in when an incident with Spider-Man’s real life and his other life landed him in a police interrogation room for some suspicious behavior. Luke and Jessica didn’t exactly have any secret identities he needed to protect, and everyone else he dealt with was at the very least old enough to drink.

“Eh, I’m only gone for a few days. I’m sure nothing too terrible will happen.”

“And that, darling, is what we call character growth,” Foggy says. “Alright, I’m going to get it, good night.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Matty.”

“Sleep tight, don’t let the bug-themed superheroes bite.”

“Ha,” Foggy says and then hangs up, setting his phone on the coffee table before taking the stairs up to the terrace. With all the lights of the city it’s not really that dark so Foggy doesn’t bother turning on any of the outdoor lights, happy to get this done quickly and head back inside.

Matt also keeps a small flashlight right beside the storage container he keeps his suit and his weapons in so Foggy uses that to help him see well enough to undo the lock. Matt has their wedding anniversary as the code, which is perhaps not the safest in the world, but very sweet nonetheless.

It takes Foggy a minute and further assistance of the flashlight to find the phone, tucked in a small weatherproof case at the bottom of the chest. Foggy’s just clicking the lock back into place and setting the flashlight back when he hears the large distinctive thump of someone jumping and landing nearby. Or maybe not that distinctive to people who aren’t married to vigilantes, but Foggy’s heard that noise enough in his life to recognize it instantly.

Foggy straightens up and looks around for a long minute, half expecting someone to emerge out of the darkness and demand Daredevil. But when no one does Foggy’s almost convinced maybe he’d just imagined the whole thing until some movement catches his eye below him on the balcony that belongs to Tim’s apartment. That’s how the builder had decided to split up the outdoor space for the top floor. Matt and Foggy had gotten the terrace, while Tim’s apartment has a large balcony that wrapped around the side of the building in an L shape.

Foggy squints, trying to place the figure on the balcony without making his presence too obvious. All vigilantes tend to look more or less the same in the dark, but Foggy didn’t work a dozen vigilante cases last year to not be up to snuff on his identification. Even still he doubts himself for a second, even when he clocks the belt, the cape, the red accents. He knows Gotham is just over in Jersey, but he’s still surprised to see Red Robin.

Though Foggy does remember distantly Matt mentioning something about a case he was working spilling over into one involving Batman and his gaggle of loosely associated vigilantes. Foggy stays still, deciding he’ll just wait until Red Robin heads off wherever he’s going and just let Matt know he saw him in case there is any superhero nonsense Matt should be in the loop on.

Only he doesn’t leave, does the exact opposite, pulling open the sliding glass door that leads into the apartment and slipping inside.

Which means….which means…..

Nope, Foggy’s brain practically screams, no way, there are not _two_ vigilantes living on one floor of the same building. Two for two on the top floor. There’s no fucking way, it’s just not possible.

There’s gotta be some logical alternative to this. Maybe Tim has a brother, or a lover, or a vague acquaintance who happens to be Red Robin, there’s no way in hell this polo-wearing Columbia double major runs in the same circles as _Batman,_ it’s just not—

Tim comes out onto the balcony, in a black athletic top like the one Matt wears under his suit, and yeah sure okay, maybe him and Red Robin are approximately the same height and build with floppy dark hair but that doesn’t _mean_ anything.

Foggy watches as Tim pulls out a phone, the glint of the high tech screen visible even in the low light. Hell maybe Red Robin just busted into his house and Tim is trying to call the police, anything’s—

Matt’s phone starts vibrating in his hand. Insistently.

Foggy stares down at the screen in betrayal, looking between Tim and the screen which reads _Red Robin_. No, it’s just a coincidence, it _has_ to be. Foggy really, really needs it to be.

Tim pulls the phone down from his ear, pressing a button to end the call and the phone goes silent in Foggy’s hand. Tim sighs, and turns around heading back into his apartment.

Well, that’s just fucking typical isn’t it?

**2\. Bargaining**

With a total square footage of 42,500, one might assume finding a moment of peace and quiet within the hallowed halls of Wayne Manor would be a simple endeavor.

One would be underestimating the determination of a twelve-year-old boy with a grappling hook.

“FATHER _._ ”

Bruce does not look away from the police report pulled up on the Cave’s main monitor. This is due in part to the fact that the staggering incompetence of the Gotham City Police Department is a crime unto itself, but mostly because not a single one of 87 security cameras has managed to reveal where he should address his response.

“Damian,” Bruce says cordially, and waits.

Somewhere above him, Bruce hears the click and release of a retractable climbing line. Damian lowers himself into Bruce’s peripheral vision with the ease of a spider, touching down gracefully in spite of the careless fury Bruce can feel radiating from him in waves.

“You put out the distress signal tonight,” he says at last.

“I did,” Bruce agrees. “It was dealt with.”

Damian takes in a deep, petulant breath. “If I had been with you— ”

“You wouldn’t have finished your home study assignments.”

“I didn’t finish them anyway!”

With a sigh, Bruce peels his eyes from the screen to look at his son. It’s something of a relief to note that Damian isn’t in uniform, that he’s wearing pajamas and warm socks like he had every intention of going to bed and even possibly sleeping.

“Damian, if you can’t follow my instructions at home, how can I trust that you’ll listen to me on patrol?” Bruce says.

Damian blushes angrily, crossing his arms before remembering himself and correcting his posture.

“I already know everything I need to know,” he insists. When Bruce raises an eyebrow he tacks on “For practical purposes! I have no intention of wasting my entire life doing _homework_ , just so I can go away to a university and do _more homework_.”

Bruce had figured this had something to do with Tim leaving. As much as they pretended to be rivals, the house seemed hollower without a constant background noise of play-fighting and pranking and bemoaning training exercises. On a surface level, this behavior signals emotional distress that will need to be taken care of before Damian can advance in his training. But deep down, on a level Bruce can’t indulge in for long, it’s comforting to see Damian behaving like a child rather than a perfectly obedient soldier.

“No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Bruce says gently. “But there will always be consequences and rewards for your behavior, and if you continue to blow off your assignments there will continue to be consequences.”

Damian considers this, scowling. “How many do I have to finish before I’m not under house arrest?”

“I expect you to be entirely caught up before I’ll even consider letting Robin assist me.” Damian throws up his hands, but Bruce isn’t finished. “If you can finish three today, I’ll talk to Tim about arranging for you to visit soon.”

“That isn’t a reward, that’s a punishment,” Damian whines, but Bruce has a feeling he’ll see results nonetheless. Damian checks his watch. “It’s nearly six,” he announces. Bruce nods. Damian levels a withering stare at the police report Bruce is no longer reading. “If you need me I’ll be upstairs, doing _real_ work.”

Tim calls at approximately 6:03, which suggests that he’s just been awoken by his 6 AM alarm, which further suggests he either didn’t make rounds at all last night or turned in early.

“You signaled distress and I _missed it?_ ” Tim shouts in Bruce’s ear. Bruce moves the call from his phone to the screen in front of him, where Tim appears larger than life, holding up his Robin phone and communicator cuff in betrayal. “I woke up to that message from Alfred that everything turned out okay and I looked like such an _asshole_ being all ‘I need you to fill me in because I SLEPT THROUGH EVERYTHING.’”

“You have class at 8:30. I intentionally didn’t disturb you in light of that.”

Tim sighs dramatically, but he can’t seem to help the grin beginning to spread across his face. “I love how that’s, like, actually really thoughtful of you but you still found a way to make it this _completely_ self-sacrificial martyr move. Stellar multitasking. You’re my role model.”

“It was practical. You’re not in proximity, you don’t have any background on this case, and you’ve deprioritized your training. You would’ve been a liability.” He doesn’t mean it as criticism, and knows Tim well enough to know he won’t take it as such. It’s almost the entire truth as well — the idea that remaining outside of Gotham preserves Tim’s safety is a ludicrous fairy tale of a hope. Danger-enhanced delusions don’t bear repeating even on a secure call.

Tim leans in closer to his screen. “So is this all contained, then? Because I’ve got something I’ve gotta run by you too.”

“’Contained’ is the not the word I would use,” Bruce says.

“ _Great_. I’m gonna eat while you fill me in then, my thing can wait,” Tim says, rustling through his desk drawers and coming back up with a Clif bar.

Though they haven’t discussed it, Bruce had assumed Tim’s selection of Columbia over Ivy University, where he’d been offered a genius grant, or even Gotham City U was an attempt at distancing himself from this way of life. But if Tim wants to be involved, Bruce isn’t going to turn it into a whole conversation. There’s no time for that, anyway.

“I’ll send you the folder.”

“Love that there’s already a folder, that’s how I know we’re not on the verge of an apocalypse again.”

“I’ve always taken the time to be prepared, apocalypse or otherwise.” Bruce deadpans, and Tim laughs.

“But okay seriously, Stephanie said something about like an underground … operating room? Like some very AMA-unapproved horror movie shit, did anything— ”

“Not an operating room,” Bruce says, cutting him off. “Blood banking. Specifically metahuman blood, which could signify anything from cloning to biological warfare.”

Tim scans the screen with more urgency than interest. “And they wanted your blood? I mean, shit, that’s almost flattering, but did theyyy, uh, find out they were wrong?”

“Stephanie and Jason were prompt enough to put a stop to proceedings before they could draw blood.”

Tim looks up from reading. “I didn’t realize you had Jason on speed dial.”

“Stephanie does; I don’t. Did you say there was something you needed to ask about?”

“Yeah,” Tim says, taking a deep breath. “And I’m thinking it might be related. So, first of all, there’s a guy in my pantry.”

Bruce blinks.

“Don’t freak out! He’s like _so_ unethically doped up, there’s nothing to worry about — unless you’re worried about the fact that I’m totally cutting class today, but don’t, my GPA is _great_ — but I _do_ need to do something about that. I mean, probably should have last night? But my neighbor was kicking around until pretty late, and he’s already, like, _very_ friendly so I gave up and went to bed.”

It’s a true testament to meditation that Bruce isn’t already en route to New York City; there are about five different panic attacks wrapped up in that sentence alone, but he steels himself and focuses on the most pressing part of this conversation first. “You’ve neglected to explain _why_ the man is in your pantry.”

“So that’s actually where it gets interesting, because I thought it was completely on me but I don’t think so anymore. At like 11:30 last night that new security system I put in started going nuts, so I suited up but I didn’t want to jump the gun just yet, you know? But this guy tried to break in through the balcony — the operative word here being _tried_ — and judging from his ensemble this didn’t seem like your run-of-the-mill B &E so I, uh, well, circumstances transpired that lead to the pantry, and I went through his shit. And he is _very_ interested in New York’s metahuman population.”

“Which has nothing to do with you,” Bruce says, frantically scanning his memory for any moment his identity and therefore Tim’s identity might have been compromised.

“You’re right, but listen!” Tim almost seems excited, his hand gestures growing more exaggerated as he continues. “I told you about my neighbor, the really friendly one — I think he’s worried I’m a wayward child in need of guidance and it’s honestly kind of sweet.”

“He isn’t wrong.”

“Funny. But listen, he’s Franklin Nelson! Like, _the_ vigilante lawyer.” Tim takes a satisfied moment to let it sink in. “So I don’t think I was the target here at all, I think this group of — what was their name, the Idolaters? I _hate_ it — anyway, I think they were trying to extort metahuman identification out of my neighbor. Who seems nice, and certainly doesn’t deserve _that_.”

“And is now a liability to you,” Bruce interrupts.

“And that,” Tim agrees.

“I would be more than happy to help you move.”

Tim exhales slowly. “I don’t know if I wanna go that far just yet, though. Mostly I just want the guy in my pantry out of my pantry without Franklin Nelson: Vigilante Lawyer noticing anything suspicious.”

Bruce plays out the likelihood of arguing Tim into reason before deciding he’ll have better luck coming back to it. “It’s Friday,” he muses, and Tim squints at him.

“Yeah?”

“Damian wanted to visit; he could stay the weekend.” Tim groans at the same time Bruce’s private phone lights up. The words _I DIDN’T!_ flash across the screen. “See if Dick wants to come by as well. Guests are loud, that’s your excuse.”

“That’s … genius, actually,” Tim sighs gratefully.

“Only if it works. Keep me up-to-date.”

“I will,” Tim says, and shoves half the Clif bar into his mouth before ending the call.

Bruce picks up his phone. _You said you were going to work on your assignments, and I’ve asked you not to eavesdrop._

 _Tell Drake that Richard was asking about lawyers_ , Damian replies, dodging responsibility.

Bruce takes the bait. _You can tell him yourself when you see him. Why does Dick need a lawyer?_

_Fast needs to bring someone back from the dead, legally_

Bruce has only managed to type out “Flash?” before his public phone lights up. Bruce glances over in time to see “Stay safe, hope you’re well,” flicker across the screen beneath a picture of Clark Kent.

The fact that Clark’s bridged the gap from someone Bruce interacts with exclusively in private to someone who checks in on him in the morning before work isn’t something Bruce takes lightly, but if he dwells on that too long it’ll overwhelm him. Bruce stands, and begins the procedure of locking down the Cave. He has the rest of today ahead of him; there’s work to be done.

**3\. Anger**

“And it’s just so completely ridiculous,” Karen says, voice full of passionate disdain even over the phone.

“Mhmm,” Foggy says, switching his phone from one ear to the other.

“Are you even listening to me?” Karen says.

“I am!” Foggy protests, even though he was really only half listening. He’d called Karen to make lunch plans, which had turned into her spiralling off on some tangent about how the rise of true crime was compromising crime journalism which had spiralled off into another tangent about how the Daily Planet covers crime and the twenty five things she thinks is wrong about it.

Even still, it was a nice distraction though from the newfound discovery he’d made about his next door neighbor. Foggy had spent most of the day vehemently pretending last night hadn’t happened. He’d decided to work from home, which had mostly meant pretending to work for a few hours before pretending to be productive by unpacking stuff when he’s really just procrastinating.

Though in his defense, there’s not a ton for him to be doing anyways. He’s mostly tied up his loose ends with his Hogarth & Associate clients, and he’s done about as much as he can do in terms of setting up Nelson & Murdock 2.0 with Matt still stuck in legal limbo.

“Foggy!” Karen snaps again.

“Shit, sorry,” Foggy says apologetically. “I’m really out of it today.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Karen says with a huff. “Look, let's just talk tomorrow at lunch.”

“Lunch. Yes, you are a goddess. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Karen just huffs an exasperated laugh into the phone and hangs up, Foggy left feeling like a bit of an asshole. It’s not that he doesn’t love Karen, and he’s so happy that she’s found such passion in journalism, but there’s only so many times he can listen to the same rants about the Daily Planet, and they crossed that threshold a while back.

Their kitchen is still only half put together, and Foggy uses it as an excuse to get takeout, curled up on the couch with a container of shrimp fried rice when Matt calls.

“Hey Matty,” Foggy says, stabbing his chopsticks upright into the container in the way he knows is super gauche, but does anyways.

“Matt?” He repeats after a second when he doesn’t say anything. “You there?”

Matt exhales loudly in the phone. “You were right.”

“I know,” Foggy blinks. “Wait, about what?”

“I shouldn’t have gone running off into the jaws of death.”

Foggy considers this for a long moment, picking at a loose thread on the upholstery. “Are you saying that because of the emotional impact it had on your friends and family, or are you saying that because you hate paperwork.”

“...I can have two reasons,” Matt says finally.

“You are turning my hair grey prematurely, I hope you know that.”

“I mean, I won’t mind.”

“Yeah, but I will, and I’m vain,” Foggy says.

“Listen, speaking of paperwork,” Matt says, “I meant to send in those forms for the adoption agency before I left but it slipped my mind, can you handle it? I left it in the office.”

“Yeah, I’ll send that off tomorrow,” Foggy says, making a mental note to move it somewhere he can’t leave the apartment without seeing it. He’s aware on several levels that the idea of acquiring some small humans with Matt’s current, well, career choices is definitely unconventional. But it had become clear with their recent shift in financial position that it was something both of them wanted to pursue. Besides, Foggy knew from his friends in family law that even in best-case scenarios adoptions could take years, so he figured Matt would have lots of time to transition into figuring out the place of vigilantism in that situation.

Speaking of which, he still hasn’t told Matt about his recent discovery about their new neighbor. He figures that’s a conversation better had in person anyways. Especially since despite Matt’s ever increasing circle of superfriends, he’d always been kind of a weird martyr about bringing people into his bullshit. Which is probably a Catholic thing now that he thinks of it.

After he wraps up with Matt, Foggy heads down to the office to sort out the paperwork, which is dutifully sitting on top of Matt’s out tray, his side of the office already organized. After a second of hesitation Foggy decides that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea, all things considered, to brush up on his Gotham vigilante knowledge, what with Red Robin literally living next door, and he spends a long few minutes digging through a box of files until he finds the one he’s looking for.

He’s literally just replacing the top on the file box when there’s a loud _smack_ against the other side of the wall and Foggy freezes, still half-crouching over the box like some sort of paperwork goblin. This is the only room in the apartment which has a shared wall with Tim’s apartment and there’s a long pause and a few small thudding noises before something hits the wall again.

And god it really says something about the state of his life that Foggy feels about 90% certain that it was the sound of someone being thrown against the wall. He stands slowly, files in hand, and debates what exactly is the protocol in this kind of situation. Because on the one hand if Tim was doing the throwing he doesn’t exactly want to walk in on that, but on the other hand if Tim was the one hitting the wall…

Foggy frowns down at the file in his hand. Even if Tim is barely out of high school, he still is a trained vigilante, and it’s not like Foggy is exactly going to be much help if he did get slammed against a wall by someone or something. Still it feels wrong, morally speaking, to just pretend like he heard nothing, even if he is grossly under-qualified to do much about it.

Which yes, okay, okay, is part of Matt’s whole argument, fine, he maybe has a bit of a point. He’s probably sitting in his stupid hotel room in Albany feeling vaguely smug and not even knowing why.

Foggy drops the file and the paperwork on the kitchen island, fishing a can of pepper spray out of one of the boxes labelled _Matt’s Stuff_ , just to be safe. He also grabs Matt’s burner so he can call someone for backup in case it goes really south. He shoves both into the pocket of his hoodie and shuts his apartment door behind him softly.

He’s just about to knock on Tim’s door when suddenly the door is jerked open, Foggy’s hand still hovering in the air as a blonde with her hair pulled into a high ponytail appears, taking a startled half step back.

“Sorry!” Foggy says, taking a step back into the hallway himself.

“No, it’s okay, you just startled me,” the blonde says, shaking her head.

“I just, uh,” Foggy says, trying to come up with a plausible excuse as to why he’s there without openly admitting that he sure did hear the sounds of someone being slammed against the wall, and not in a fun sexy way. Especially because, for all he knows this blonde could be the one who did the slamming. She doesn’t look particularly dangerous, but Foggy knows up close and personal that looks can be deceiving.

“You just what?” She prompts.

“I just heard something, uh, thump, in the apartment? Just wanted to make sure Tim was okay?” Foggy finishes lamely, hand firmly over the can of pepper spray in his pocket.

The girl laughs, “Oh, _that_ ,” she rolls her eyes. “ _Someone_ thought they could move a bookshelf by himself. He’s fine. The bookshelf, not so much.”

Foggy studies her face carefully, wishing that he could hear her heartbeat, that he could borrow Matt’s freaky ninja senses for just a hot second to know if he should trust her. He knows she’s lying about the shelf, there’s no way that’s what it was, but whether or not this is a lie she’s telling to protect Tim or one she’s telling to throw Foggy off he just can’t tell.

It’s lucky then when Tim appears over her shoulder, looking unharmed, and Foggy doesn’t have to make the call himself.

“Oh hi Foggy,” Tim says, and Foggy catches that he’s limping ever so slightly, covering it well enough that he probably wouldn’t notice were he almost anyone else.

“Cutie, your redecoration plans are frightening the neighbors,” the blonde says, Tim coming up and slinging an easy arm over her shoulder.

“I blame the Swedes. And gravity,” Tim says. “Sorry if you heard that. We’ve been watching too much Queer Eye and got a bit too ambitious about my furniture rearranging.”

The blonde clears her throat loudly. “Oh right, sorry. Stephanie, this is my neighbor Foggy. Foggy, this is my girlfriend Stephanie.”

She waggles her fingers at him, and that’s when Foggy notices for the first time that she’s holding a plain paper bag in one hand, though Foggy would put his money on something other than takeout.

“Nice to meet you,” Foggy says, fingers relaxing around the pepper spray in his pocket. “I’ll let you get back to your night, I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

“Peachy keen,” Stephanie says.

“Yeah I think we’ll scratch interior decorator off my list of career options,” Tim says, completely effortlessly charming. God they are good at this.

Foggy nods. “Sure, of course. Nice to meet you, Stephanie.”

“You too!” Stephanie says and then slips out from under Tim’s arm, heading back down the hallway into the apartment, paper bag still clutched firmly in hand.

Tim gives a little apologetic shrug. “Sorry again about the noise, have a good night, man.”

“Yeah you too,” Foggy says, feeling at least a tiny bit comforted with the idea that Tim has a blonde, normal-person significant other who’s in on his nonsense. From his experience, that’s key to a vigilante-life balance.

Foggy ends up staying up way later than he should re-reading his Gotham file, which is a nice distraction from the fact that there definitely is someone in the next apartment over who Tim threw up against a wall. Though, at the very least there’s the comforting knowledge in his files that Batman and his affiliated cohort don’t generally kill people. (Though much like Matt’s whole thing about not killing people, it seemed to be the kind of moral code that had some grey area for ‘well you didn’t technically kill them but they sure did die from the injuries you inflicted.’)

The file is long enough that Foggy’s still leafing through things the next morning, even after he should really have already left to meet Karen for lunch. He’s a bit rushed as he shoves everything back into the file, throwing on a jacket and grabbing his keys and the adoption paperwork, already trying to pull up the directions to the restaurant on his phone as he pulls the apartment door shut behind him.

He’s trying to juggle his phone and his keys and his wallet so it takes him a second to notice that he’s not alone in the little lobby space between their apartments. The man standing in front of Tim’s door whirls around to face Foggy and oh holy shit.

Bruce Wayne is even hotter in person.

And okay, that’s not the whole reason Foggy’s brain turns to mush, but he’s not going to pretend that it’s not a factor on the table.

“Hrughhh?” Foggy says eloquently, and Bruce Wayne raises an eyebrow at him.

“Good morning.”

“Yes, hello, good morning, sir,” Foggy says, brain too full of _Bruce Wayne Hot_ to focus on why exactly Bruce Wayne would be hanging around in his hallway. Like the very thought of orphans had summoned him from the depths of Gotham, New Jersey.

Bruce gives him another little disinterested once over, putting his phone to his ear for a long second before the apartment door swings open, Tim looking a little out of breath. Which makes sense if you’re trying to frantically hide some nonsense in your apartment from unsuspecting visitors.

Foggy presses the elevator button, trying to watch without overtly watching, but Tim catches his eye and waves. “Morning!”

“Hey, good morning,” Foggy says, taking a step away from the elevator. For someone who always claims to not want to be part of the drama he can’t help but be fascinated to know what part Bruce fucking Wayne plays in this whole drama.

“Foggy, this is my father,” Tim says, answering the question that must be written all over Foggy’s face. Which, okay, that makes sense actually, given the penthouse apartment for a college freshman.

“Yes, hello sir,” Foggy says, flapping his hand uselessly in some sort of sad attempt at a wave.

“Hmm,” Bruce Wayne says, and then follows his son into the apartment, Tim giving sort of an apologetic half shrug to Foggy, the thump of the shutting door and the ding of the elevator like some half-hearted drumroll to a joke that’s fallen flat.

And while Bruce Wayne being 1) unsettlingly hot and 2) very dismissive of Foggy is not exactly how he wanted that interaction to go, he can at least comfort himself with the fact that Bruce Wayne is probably ignorant to the fact that his kid is a vigilante and is definitely funneling his trust fund money into gadgets and other associated nonsense.

Foggy only ends up being about ten minutes late to lunch, which is not too bad all things considered. Not that Karen sees it that way, frowning at him over her glass of wine.

“Not very punctual, Mr. Nelson,” she says coolly, but she accepts his kiss to her cheek.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Foggy says, throwing his jacket over the back of his chair. He’s glad she wanted to meet at one of their old favorite lunch spots from the heyday of Nelson & Murdock, so he can skip the pretense of looking over the menu, cutting right to the chase.

“Okay so I’m really sorry I’m late, but I swear I have a good excuse.”

“Oh?” Karen says, all her annoyance dripping away as she leans forward intrigued. “Do go on.”

“So, you know how my new building is super fancy,” Foggy starts, but Karen is already rolling her eyes. Karen hates Jeri with a fiery burning passion. Which Foggy wouldn’t really mind if it were based on her sometimes confusing but extremely solid moral code. But it’s actually a lot more to do with the fact that Karen is head over heels in love with Jeri’s ex, Pam, who is now working as a receptionist at the Daily Bulletin. Foggy figures that they do have a lot in common actually, the whole dating your boss and getting caught up in some vigilante bullshit because of it thing is a pretty niche life experience. Plus, he actually really likes Pam from their crossover time of working at HC&B and he thinks the two of them could be a great couple, if only Karen would actually work up the nerve to ask her out.

“Yes, yes, I know you hate that I accepted the apartment, that is not the point of this story,” Foggy says. “So there’s only one other apartment on our floor and the guy who lives there is literally this college-aged kid, so I was like, oh okay his parents are loaded if he’s living there alone. But whatever, he seems like a nice enough kid.”

“So whatever, anyways, I’m leaving to come here and who is standing in front of his door but _Bruce Wayne_ ,” Karen’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “ _I know_. So yeah, Bruce Wayne’s kid is my freaking neighbor.”

“Dick Grayson or Tim Drake?” Karen asks immediately.

“You said that way too quickly, who knows the names of Bruce Wayne’s kids that instinctively?”

“I’m a reporter, Foggy, it’s my job to know these things,” Karen says, taking another sip of her wine.

“It’s Tim, but either way, Bruce Wayne’s kid lives in my building, and I _met him_ and holy shit Karen he’s _so_ good looking. Pictures did not prepare me.”

Karen scoffs loudly. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those people who worships the ground he walks on.”

Foggy wrinkles his nose. “Don’t make it weird. I just think he seems like a cool attractive dude. Plus I like hot, ripped orphans, I have a type. Or wait, former-orphans? Are you still an orphan if you’re over eighteen?”

“No, I think then you’re just a sad adult.”

Foggy practically inhales the sip of water he was trying to take, coughing droplets all over himself right as the server comes by with their food. Which is just, a great look for him, really.

By the time Foggy manages to right himself again, Karen’s already digging into her cobb salad trying to hide a grin because she’s the kind of person who doesn’t like to admit at enjoying someone else’s misfortune.

“So wait, what’s your beef with Bruce Wayne?” Foggy asks, digging into his own thai shrimp salad. “I didn’t really think you were that interested in like, socialites and tycoons.”

“I just think he’s a bit overrated,” Karen says. “Like if you had the _perfect_ woman, why would you leave her, first of all, and secondly why would you leave her for some millionaire man-child who probably can’t even tie his shoes by himself, let alone win a Pulitzer Prize.”

Foggy frowns. “I feel like we are no longer talking about the same thing. Who’s dating him?”

Karen pauses, her face flushing red. “No one, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t like him.”

Foggy frowns. “Wait a minute…is this about Lois Lane?”

Karen opens her mouth, offended, but she’s flushing redder. “Well, not entirely. I just think that her boyfriend leaving her for Bruce Wayne was tacky.”

“Oh my god, this is about that reporter guy you have the rage boner for, Kent whatever.”

“It’s Clark Kent,” Karen says, “and I do not have a ‘rage boner’ for him Foggy, don’t be gross.”

“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em Miss Page,” Foggy says. “And you are both furious with this man and clearly want to make your bones with him, so….”

“I do not!”

“Why do you even hate him anyways?” Foggy asks, and maybe he should cool it, but he’s had such a weird week, and teasing Karen is so blessedly normal.

“He’s just so…” Karen makes a complicated series of gestures with her fork. “He’s just so _nice_ and _polite_ and _yes ma’am_ and _no ma’am_. It’s _infuriating_. And he’s a damn good journalist too, by the book, ethical as all fuck. That’s how the Bruce Wayne thing came out, he turned down a huge opportunity because it was a conflict of interest for him to be writing about _Wayne Enterprises_. And his insights on the complexities of vigilante justice and the rise of superheroes are fascinating and nuanced. _And_ he’s good looking. Like he just sucks, Foggy, trust me.”

Foggy clicks his tongue. “That’s a class A rage boner, my friend.”

“If I concede will you stop saying the word boner?”

“Deal,” Foggy says, and they shake hands over their salads. “So when are you going to ask Pam out?”

“You are literally the worst, why do I hang out with you?”

“Probably Stockholm Syndrome,” Foggy jokes, and then yelps when Karen’s very pointy-toed shoe makes contact with his shin.

He lets her lead the conversation for the rest of lunch, including her twelve-step plan to ask out Pam, thank you very much Franklin. All in all it ends up being a nice break from the increased vigilante nonsense that’s invaded Foggy’s life in the last few days and he makes Karen promise that she will at least _consider_ coming to see the new apartment when Matt’s back in town.

Foggy then heads over to the former offices of Hogarth & Associates to have his final client meeting and clear out the last few things from his office. The cactus that Matt had gotten him as a Valentine’s day gift because it was allegedly unkillable still valiantly holding on and he sets it on top of the last of his files as he makes his way out of the office for the last time.

He makes a quick detour on the way back to the apartment to drop off the adoption paperwork, which is a lot more nerve-wracking than he’d expected to be, the knowledge that at least theoretically at any point from today onwards he might be called on to be some sort of parental figure to a tiny human being. Being Spider-Man’s lawyer was already stressful enough.

 _Do you think we’re making a terrible mistake with this adoption thing?_ He texts Matt.

 _What are you talking about? Youre going to be the best dad_ Matt texts back when Foggy’s almost back to the apartment and Foggy can just picture him with his phone pressed to his ear so he can hear the voice-to-text, the little slide-out keyboard attachment still flipped open.

He’s smiling down at his phone, which is probably why he walks right into the back of some dude standing in front of the elevator.

“Oh whoa, sorry, my bad,” Foggy says, shifting his box more securely into his arms.

The guy turns. He’s pretty young but definitely older than Tim, and Foggy would peg him for about twenty five, a kid about ten peeking out from behind his legs. “I’m so sorry, we shouldn’t be blocking the elevator like that, c’mon Damian.”

“Why didn’t you look at the number before we left?” the kid, Damian says, arms crossed over his chest.

“We were on the top floor, I thought it was a penthouse. I’ll text Tim,” the older guy says looking down at his phone.

“Oh, um,” Foggy says, feeling like a bit of an eavesdropper but wanting to help. “Are you looking for Tim Drake’s apartment?”

The guy snaps his head up. “Yeah, actually we are.”

Foggy nods. “I’m the other top floor apartment, so I can show you.” The little kid scowls but the older guy nods appreciatively and follows Foggy into the elevator. He does consider the implications of letting some random guys up to Tim’s apartment, especially when he’s pretty sure there was some vigilante nonsense going on in said apartment in the last twenty four hours. But for all he knows, maybe they’re both in on it too like Stephanie was.

“Well, here we are,” Foggy says anticlimactically. “He’s that apartment.”

“Thanks so much,” the older guy says.

“Yeah no problem,” Foggy says, shifting his box so he can grab his keys.

“We’re going to have a party,” the kid blurts suddenly, very seriously, holding out the bag of chips he’s holding as if to prove this fact.

“Oh? Um, that’s great?” Foggy offers, making confused eye contact with the older guy who just shrugs.

“We’ll keep it down, won’t we Damian?”

“Sure,” the kid says and Foggy has the distinct impression that some sort of tomfoolery is going on. For someone who allegedly lives alone Tim has had a lot of people in and out in the last twenty four hours.

Foggy’s torn between a fierce urge to get to the bottom of this nonsense, while still having absolutely no desire to get involved. Heaven help him when Matt gets home tomorrow afternoon, his freaky ninja senses perfect for nonsense like this.

The older guy knocks on Tim’s door and there’s a long pause before it’s answered, not by Tim, but by an even older guy, his dark hair shot through with a stripe of white like a buff skunk.

“Hey Dick,” the guy says, and for a hot second Foggy thinks he’s just calling him a dick before he remembers that Karen had mentioned that was the name of one of Bruce Wayne’s other kids.

“Jason,” Dick says, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Didn’t wanna miss a party. Besides, Stephanie invited me.”

Dick ushers Damian towards the apartment and the three of them stand there for a brief second, something very suddenly clicking in his mind as he watches them in their little Norman Rockwell tableau.

Foggy waits a long few seconds after the apartment door closes behind them, his heart rattling like a subway car on the tracks as he jams his key into the door, sliding his box of office crap into the kitchen and grabbing for the file he’d pulled last night.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Foggy mutters under his breath as he sorts photos out onto the hardwood floor, an ever expanding cloud of pictures. Everything snapping so perfectly into place that Foggy kind of feels like he’s going to throw up.

Tim, Stephanie, Dick, Jason, Damian.

Red Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin.

And at the top of the pile, like the fucking star on this Christmas tree of horror.

Bruce Wayne.

Batman.

“Oh fuck me,” Foggy says to no one in particular, before dramatically collapsing to the ground in defeat.

**4\. Depression**

Having resigned himself long ago to the fact that being a team player means never having a moment to himself, Bruce is unsurprised to see Cassandra stitching up a leg injury at his second-best kitchen table. There’s a suturing kit scattered in front of her, alongside a goblet of what looks like blue Gatorade, and while in the past she may have been sheepish to be found so vulnerable, today she doesn’t even straighten her posture at the sound of Bruce setting down his briefcase and keys.

“The Black Mask is no longer attempting to murder you,” Cass says, satisfied. “As for the rest of the False Face Society— ” she breaks off, making an elaborate hand gesture Bruce interprets as ‘I’m working on it,’ and tosses Bruce a bloodied washcloth. “Put that in the sink?” she asks, barely a request. There’s something reassuring about her ease in this space, even when what she’s saying has the opposite effect.

“I was unaware the Black Mask had moved up to this level of threat,” Bruce comments, and Cass shrugs.

“You were busy. I wasn’t.”

He busies himself with removing his cufflinks, a gradual start to the process of peeling out of his everyday professional disguise.

“I’ll need to know everything you know. And as for the rest of the society, you’ll need backup,” Bruce asserts, mitigating the panic over his ignorance toward the entire situation into something he can control.

“Batwoman is backup for as long as you’re still busy,” Cass says. With practiced steadiness she pulls the thread of her last stitch around the needle driver, clipping the excess from the knot. “You should... focus yourself on your own battles,” she says gradually. “I can focus on mine without you.”

“I trained you — all of you — to work _with_ me as a network, to widen the Bat’s collective scope. It was never my intention to use you to lessen my own workload. That kind of nearsightedness is how you end up with a knife in your back. Or your calf,” Bruce says pointedly.

“You only trained me a bit,” Cass says, and this is true. She doesn’t say that she’s stronger than he is, though that is also true. “Things still go wrong when you’re around. Or when we’re all together. And sometimes they go wrong when we’re apart, but that doesn’t mean it’s because of that.”

Bruce isn’t sure what he wants right now, but something about this conversation makes him feel like everything is slipping through his fingers. “I want us to be able to help one another,” he says, and Cass looks disappointed.

“No, you want to take everything on yourself and then delegate. Letting people help you means accepting the help they offer you, not just telling them what to do.”

He isn’t going to win this discussion, and he should have seen that coming. Cass doesn’t lose.

After downing the rest of her drink, Cass takes pity on him and changes the subject. “Tim’s apartment is nice. Have you visited?”

“I’ve been by. I haven’t gone inside since he’s furnished it, have you?”

“A few days ago. I was around, and... needed to borrow a kitchen,” she says cryptically. “Sometime I’ll go back when he’s actually home.”

“I’m sure he would appreciate the courtesy.”

Cass makes a face, poking her tongue between her teeth. “We don’t need courtesy, he’s still _Tim_. The only difference between that and popping in to his room upstairs is a few miles.” She stands, beginning to clear the table. Bruce finds this somewhat alarming.

“You aren’t going back out— ”

“I am going upstairs,” Cass says, placating. “But I’ll be out again after I’ve rested. And _if_ I need help— ” she says rapidly, cutting off Bruce’s objection, “I will call you. Or Barbara. Or Dinah, or any number of people _who we trust_ to help.”

She scrunches her nose, remembering something.

“Or Clark. Who is downstairs, by the way.”

She says it so casually Bruce almost can’t fathom what those words in that order could possibly mean, but yes, it would appear Clark has reached a level of confidence in— whatever it is they are, that allows for making himself comfortable in Bruce’s space in his absence.

He isn’t using the Cave’s main computer modem — and there’s something almost charming about that — so Bruce can’t see what it is he’s cross-referencing when he approaches.

“Alfred gave me the code,” Clark says, not turning around. He sounds tentative. “A while ago, actually. In case of emergency. And this isn’t emergent, but it is— well, semi-urgent.”

“Luthor?”

Clark runs a hand through his hair, sighing unnecessarily. “I still can’t pin anything to him but it feels like we’re right on the brink. Some of General Zod’s Kryptonian tech hoard resurfaced yesterday and if I could just link the buyer to Luthor, _somehow_ ,” he gestures futilely to the database in front of him.

Bruce doesn’t place a hand on his shoulder but he does consider it, opting instead to rest his forearm on the back of Clark’s chair. Clark sinks back into it.

“I could commit so many counts of unethical journalism with this at my fingertips,” Clark jokes half-heartedly.

“You can do that already just by being yourself.” He isn’t saying it to be unkind. He knows Clark will parse his meaning, the unsaid _but you won’t, you would never, I know this about you._

“Well, I actually do have a contingency plan for coming at Luthor from that angle. Not, I mean, not from an unethical angle, but from an investigative journalism angle. There’s someone I have in mind who I think would just love to pull him apart.”

It’s useful to have allies in low places, Bruce reminds himself. Even when they’re the kind who make a living selling other people’s secrets.

“I can practically hear you thinking terrible thoughts about the free press, but since Luthor booted Lois from his press coverage I’m just not seeing a whole ton of other options here. And the person I’m considering, Karen Page, she seems like the real deal. I’ll let you scope her out before I approach her, but I’ve run into her a few times recently and I have a good feeling about it.”

“Then I’ll follow your lead,” Bruce says, because terrifying optimism aside, Clark does tend to have good instincts. And anyways, Bruce needs him feeling agreeable tonight. He runs the tips of his fingers along the back of Clark’s neck — a necessary indulgence, since they’re still rarely affectionate with one another when they’re in the Cave under the guise of business. “As a word of advice, I think it would be wise for you to lay low tonight.”

Clark tips his head back to narrow his eyes at Bruce, but he can’t seem to help smiling. “In the mood to be batnapped again?”

Bruce exhales slowly through his nose. “I’m being perfectly serious.”

“So am I,” Clark says, standing as though to emphasize the full six inches of height he has on Bruce. “These… cult scientists, Idolaters or whatever they call themselves, if they’re too dangerous for me, and if they’re clearly too dangerous for you, I don’t understand how going after them together isn’t the obvious course of action.”

“I know how to avoid making the same mistake twice, but even were that not the case my margin for error is still much lower than yours.”

Clark tosses up his hands in frustration. “Because they want metahumans? But I’m not just any metahuman, Bruce, I’m not even _human._ I’ve always been a little harder to kick around than your average tin can.”

“Not always,” Bruce says, stepping closer. He could lean up and kiss him if he wanted to. “And the fact that Luthor has only gotten his hands on the Kryptonian tech and not the kryptonite is good, but that means it could be anywhere. With anyone.”

“You can’t _really_ think… ” Clark starts, and then considers it, weighing the risk. It isn’t high, but it’s high enough. The fight goes out of him, visibly.

And Bruce does kiss him then, lingering and soft, and Clark sighs and says, “Alright.” Bruce takes Clark’s hands in his, squeezing them in gratitude.

“And I guess there’s nothing I could say that would convince you to stay in with me?”

“Nothing comes to mind,” Bruce says thoughtfully, “but you’re welcome to try.”

With his forehead still pressed to Bruce’s, Clark gently shakes his head no. “Not really any point to it, is there,” he replies, laughing a little ruefully. “But _please_ promise me something. Please. I don’t want to hear through a third party that you’ve been hurt again. Will you let me know first if something bad happens?”

Bruce kisses him again, and doesn’t say a word.

*

Hell’s Kitchen might objectively be a safer place to live than Gotham City, but it isn’t better lit or better looking. It’s good for Bruce to test his range, but he almost wishes he were the type who could forward Tim’s series of encrypted texts to one of New York’s own vigilantes and wash his hands of the matter.

But Tim is his responsibility, the products of Tim’s morally questionable interrogation methods are _very much_ his responsibility, and even if he’d had no personal ties to this case whatsoever, it is his imperative as an ordinary member of the human race to step in where superhumans would be at risk. He can hardly justify his place in the League otherwise.

And the man called Luke Cage was ready and able to protect himself without any forewarning from Bruce. He didn’t pursue after flinging his would-be attacker to the street and watching him run, but whether that’s because he’s getting in contact with an ally or simply recuperating, it isn’t Bruce’s objective to worry about.

A sputtering old car peels out from the end of the street, giving some insight into what level of underground organization they’re dealing with, and Bruce leaps for his bike, keeping as low a profile he can expect to maintain in a cape. It’s possible this man will lead him right to the heart of the organization — but if Tim’s stream of updates are trustworthy, and they have been so far, there’s another target nearby.

The car lulls near the back entrance of a dingy apartment complex that probably predates World War II, and Bruce kills his engine, suspicions confirmed. There’s a keypad to get into the building, but he knows from a full array of experiences how little of a deterrent it’ll be.

Bruce casts a line and pulls himself up to the top of the building, a move executed with enough precision that he doesn’t notice someone’s already up there until his feet hit the roof.

“Hello, what the _fuck_ ,” a woman announces, and a second glance confirms that she is, in fact, Jessica Jones. “Wow,” she says, giving Bruce an unimpressed once-over in return. “I should’ve guessed this was Gotham City freak bullshit. Are you here to fix my window or something? ‘Cuz that’s basically all you can do for me at this point.”

“You’ve been attacked once already?” he asks, almost rhetorically, and Jessica shoots him a look that screams ‘no fucking shit, dude.’

“You’re still in danger,” he adds, and she throws up her arms.

“I mean, that’s just kind of my life at this point,” she says, and through the layered tar just beneath their feet comes a sound like wood splitting. “Shit!” She exclaims, and runs for the door, muttering “Not like I was ever getting my security deposit back anyway,” as she lets it slam behind her. Bruce doesn’t need to test it to know it locked automatically, but in the brief conversation he’s just undergone, he already has all the information he needs to plan his next move: Jessica lives on the top floor, and her window’s shattered.

He doesn’t even have to adjust his line before vaulting over the side of the building, a small convenience that comes at a high price. He’ll never know if Jessica would have subdued the intruder just as easily without the distraction of Batman bursting through her shattered window, but it gives her enough time to knock him out with what looks like a kitchen chair.

Not long enough, however, to prevent a bullet cracking through the Batsuit’s plackart, dropping him to the ground almost simultaneously with the man he was pursuing.

He can feel himself losing blood to a dangerous degree— he has emergency protocol for this— if he could regulate his breathing he might, he might— he cannot allow himself to give over control, and yet he slips out of consciousness to the sound of “Hey! You can’t just die on my rug, that’s _bull!_ Is there somewhere you can go? Do you have someone you can go to?”

**5\. Acceptance**

Figuring out that Bruce Wayne is Batman is truly the gift that keeps giving. Even after he manages to pull himself off the floor, shoving all the evidence back into his file and throwing the whole thing into his office, his brain keeps coming up with fascinating new insights.

Like hold on, didn’t Jason Todd literally die like, a while ago?

And does Clark Kent know his boyfriend is Batman?

Actually, Foggy sits up in bed, grabbing for his laptop on the floor, fumbling for a minute before he manages to snag it.

Oh. Yup. Great.

Clark Kent sure is a ripped dude who looks suspiciously like Superman.

Not that he can ever tell her but Karen’s rage boner is going to grow like ten sizes because of that. Especially because she literally has an established thing for vigilantes.

Foggy groans and flops back down in bed. Well, at least that sure was an explanation for why Matt had come back from his last interaction with the so-called Justice League and complained about the sexual tension between Superman and Batman.

_(“I just wanted to be like, can you just kiss already and we can get back to the mission? I’ve walked by strip bars with less pheromones in the air.”_

_“This is hysterically funny coming from the man in his leather daddy get-up, but I believe you.”)_

Despite this absolute _nonsense_ Foggy does manage to doze off around two, waking a little before his alarm to his phone pinging a new email notification. Foggy groans, pulling the phone up to his face so he can decipher whatever nonsense someone felt the need to send him at 7:26 am.

_Dear Mr. Nelson,_

_A mutual friend of ours, Tim Drake, passed along your details having heard about your experience in legally reversing inaccurate death certificates and the like. While I am uncomfortable specifying the details over email I would be happy to meet in person to discuss the possibility of engaging your services._

_I hope to hear from you soon,_

_Barry Allen_

Foggy squints at the email for a long second, bleary-eyed. It’s not exactly impossible to find out that he and Matt had to legally reverse his mortality status after he’d come back, but it’s also not the kind of thing that’s exactly easy to find, either. Also the mention of Tim’s name really is the nail in the coffin that this is some kind of vigilante bullshit that he doesn’t really want any part of.

So instead he turns off his alarm, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

Foggy makes sure to bury his Gotham files deep in his other office shit before he leaves to get Matt from the train station in the late afternoon. Not that Matt could, you know, actually _read_ them, but knowing his freaky ninja stuff he’d be able to tell something just from the ink or the lingering scent of sweat and floor cleaner from when he’d had everything spread out.

As usual he’s running ever so slightly late, so Matt has already gotten off the train, being very courteously escorted by an Amtrak employee who is pulling his rolly suitcase for him, Matt’s cane tapping like a heartbeat on the stone floors.

“Darling, not in front of the Amtrak employee,” Foggy says when Matt, uncharacteristically, pulls him into his arms once Foggy’s within reach, tucking his face in the crook of his neck and breathing deeply.

“That was horrible. That was literally harder than taking the bar the first time.”

Foggy rubs Matt’s back for a long minute, before remembering the poor Amtrak employee who dragged Matt’s bag over and gestures for her to hand the suitcase over to him.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Murdock,” Foggy says, Matt folding his cane and tucking his hand into the crook of Foggy’s arm.

“Glad to be back Mr. Nelson,” Matt says.

“Hey do you ever regret not changing your last name?” Foggy asks. “I mean, it would have been pretty easy to do with all that other paperwork?”

“What’s wrong with my name?” Matt asks, pouting ever so slightly as Foggy weaves them through the beginnings of rush hour pedestrian traffic.

“Matthew Michael Murdock, I’m not even answering that question,” Foggy says.

“You know, my confirmation name is Marcus.”

“I literally cannot stand you, why the hell did I marry you?”

Matt laughs, pressing his face back against Foggy’s neck, the way he used to when they were in law school and stumbling home after a night of fun. “Because you love me?” Matt offers, the arm of his glasses digging into Foggy’s neck the slightest bit.

“Heaven help me, I really do,” Foggy concedes, ducking a kiss onto Matt’s hairline, which is particularly dangerous show of affection while trying to navigate a crowd.

They walk up a few blocks because Foggy doesn’t have great luck hailing a cab most of the time and being right outside Grand Central doesn’t help.

“Do you want me to try?” Matt says after Foggy tries and fails a few too many times.

“Ugh, fine,” Foggy says, stepping aside so Matt can unfurl his cane and almost immediately manages to successfully hail a cab.

“Stupid handsome wounded duck routine,” Foggy mutters half under his breath as they climb into the backseat and Matt gives their address to the driver.

“Yeah, being able to hail cabs quickly really makes up for all that institutionalized ableism,” Matt says, leaning back into his seat. “You have no clue how bad the New York Bar Association was.”

“Someone should totally sue them.”

“Someone should _definitely_ sue them,” Matt echoes, reaching for Foggy’s hand and rubbing his thumb over Foggy’s wedding ring.

“God, if only we knew some lawyers,” Foggy says with a melodramatic sigh.

“If _only_.”

Foggy laughs. “I missed you so much. Please never fake die and-slash-or go to Albany again.”

“I can promise half of that.”

“I’ll take it,” Foggy says. “Oh by the way, I don’t want to get into it right now but uh, some stuff happened while you were gone that we should really talk about.”

The corner of Matt’s mouth turns down. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when we get home,” Foggy says, gesturing to the driver. It’s been sort of a weird adjustment period to knowing that Matt can sort of ‘see’ his gestures, and he still has a habit of narrating what he’s doing. Matt seems to think it’s cute though, so Foggy doesn’t mind, and besides he probably gets tired of having to rely on like, disturbed air currents when he’s living his normal Matt-life.

“Did anyone call my other work phone?” Matt asks seriously, and Foggy sighs. He’s not exactly been looking forward to this conversation, but he’d seen it coming a mile off. While he’s not exactly sure what Tim was trying to call Matt about, he feels like the two of them being in close proximity will bring even something low-level up to an eleven.

“Yeah, here, I brought it, you have messages but maybe you want to— ” Foggy doesn’t even get to finish his sentence about maybe being careful about listening to the messages on your secret vigilante phone in public before Matt is calling up voicemail.

Foggy can hear the loud tinny sound of what he thinks is a woman’s voice, which is odd. Unless Tim maybe has some sort of voice changer in his suit like Batman is rumored to have.

“Matty?” Foggy asks, voice cast down. “What’s going on?”

Matt’s already a million miles away as he hangs up his phone. “It’s Jessica.”

“Is she okay?”

“I don’t know, I need to,” Matt leans forward towards the partition, “Hi, could you just drop me off here, just anywhere along here is fine.”

“Matt,” Foggy says insistently as the driver pulls over.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Matt says.

“Your suit is at home,” Foggy points out.

Matt looks down sheepishly. “I uh, I have a spare one that I brought with me to Albany.”

“You _what_ ,” Foggy says, and before he can even start processing what Matt thought might happen in _Albany_ of all places, he’s already dug through the suitcase and come up with a black silk drawstring bag, like the kind normal people might keep a hairdryer in.

“I’ll be home as soon as I can, I love you,” Matt says, pulling Foggy close for a kiss, and he must have opened the door with his free hand while Foggy was distracted because one moment he’s there and the next he’s gone.

Foggy takes a deep calming breath through his nose, before grabbing his wallet and the suitcase. “You know what, this is good for me too, I think I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

Walking home through the park does make him feel a bit calmer about the whole situation, even if they’re going to have a real serious husbands talk about Matt’s secret extra suit when he gets back.

And he manages not to bump into a whole entire vigilante and/or member of the Wayne family on his way up to his apartment, so he’s going to count that as a win.

Foggy figures if he’s stuck at home he might as well be responsible and try to finish some of the unpacking he’s been putting off while Matt’s been gone.

Hours later he’s about halfway through the last few boxes when there’s a soft knock at the door, and Foggy frowns, wondering if Matt lost his keys, or left them where he left his normal person clothes when he went off to ninja his way around midtown Manhattan.

It’s not Matt when he answers the door though, it’s Tim, holding a pizza box and looking a little sheepish.

“Uh, hey dude,” Foggy says, and then immediately mentally kicks himself. Do the kids say dude? Is it even remotely appropriate for him to be calling this teenager dude? Whatever. It happened. Moving on.

“Hey,” Tim says. “I heard you bumped into my brothers earlier and well, uh, I know it’s probably been a bit noisy so I thought the least we could do was buy you dinner?”

Foggy looks down at the pizza box. He honestly hadn’t heard anything, though if he listens hard now he can just barely make out some soft _thump thump_ -ing from Tim’s door, and oh god what exactly is that music trying to cover.

He doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t _want_ to know.

But he is into free pizza, even if it totally feels like a bribe.

“Oh thanks, that’s really thoughtful, you guys have been fine though,” Foggy says, but he accepts the box when Tim shoves it into his hands.

“Awesome,” Tim says, wiping his hands on his khakis, and Christ isn’t that an image. A vigilante who wears khakis. Just in case he wants to go for a round of golf in between beating up muggers and his econ 101 class.

“Oh, hey,” Foggy adds belatedly. “My husband is coming home probably within the next hour and he’s really, uh, he’s blind so he has really sensitive hearing, so you might want to just try and wrap it up pretty soon.”

Because just about the last thing Foggy needs right now is for Matt to come home only to hear whatever nonsense the Wayne kids have been getting up to before Foggy can explain the situation to him.

Tim’s eyes widen ever so slightly. “Noted, I’ll make sure they keep it down.”

Foggy gives him a little affirmative tongue click, debating in hindsight whether or not it was a good idea to tell Tim that Matt’s blind. Because on the one hand, he doesn’t think Matt’s planning on telling any of these youths that he’s Daredevil the next time he bumps into them on his weekly outings to break up crime lords and whatever. But on the other hand, if Tim puts it together first that’s not exactly helpful in keeping Matt’s two lives separate.

He doesn’t have long to consider this because a half second later the door to the terrace is kicked open with a huge _CLANG_. Foggy drops the box of pizza as he whirls around to see Jessica Jones standing at the top of his steps.

“I’ll pay for that,” Jessica says, shifting her grip on the person she’s got slung over her back in a fireman’s lift. For a horrifying half-second Foggy thinks it’s Matt, and oh god he’s been shot or stabbed or maimed or or or.

But Jessica takes a few more steps down the stairs, into the light of the apartment and that’s not Matt’s suit at all. Actually it looks a lot more like…Batman.

Fuck.

“Jesus this guy is built like a brick shithouse,” Jessica says, lowering him with not the most care in the world onto Foggy’s couch, Batman — Bruce Wayne — groaning softly.

“What the— ”

Jessica pushes her hair out of her face. “Your dearly beloved is _fine,_ my place is compromised and so’s Luke’s so he said we could bring Batsy over here to yours.”

Foggy opens and then closes his mouth, Jessica thumping back up the terrace stairs and closing the door. Or more like she sets the door back over the opening while Foggy looks awkwardly between the two of them. It’s not like the first time he’s had some vigilante bleeding on his IKEA couch, but it’s not really something you get used to.

“What the hell is going on,” Foggy says, finally finding his voice, passing around the back of the couch to cut off Jessica as she comes back down the stairs, giving him her usual disinterested little head roll.

“Some freak broke into my apartment, they hit Luke’s too, some kind of freaky medical bullshit from the shit he had on him. I called our horny friend, he came to check it out. Turns out there was a second one, I guess the Batboy was tailing him. He tried to play the hero and he got shot,” she punctuates her brief if fairly detailed account by tossing the first aid kit from Matt’s sin bin at him.

“Here, you’ll need this,” Jessica says.

“Ahh yes I’ll just patch him up with the first aid skills I learned at summer camp when I was fifteen!” Foggy snaps, panic starting to well in his chest. Bruce Wayne cannot fucking die on his couch in a motherfucking bat costume. He did not sign up for _any_ of this.

“Just do the best you can, call Claire, I’ll send loverboy home as soon as possible.”

“Jessica!” Foggy calls after her, but she’s already taking the steps back up and out, calling a _“Sorry again about the door!”_ over her shoulder as she slips around where the door is hanging slightly ajar.

Foggy stares down at the unconscious heap of Batman on his couch, sighs, and goes to get his phone from the coffee table so he can call Claire, who he hates bringing into nonsense on principle, but who he can’t really afford not to call in this situation. But before he can reach his phone, a hand wraps tightly around his wrist.

“No, no,” Batman (Bruceman?) rasps, his voice coming out all echoey and weird from the voice changer in his whole helmet cowl thing.

“I’m calling a nurse,” Foggy says. “She deals with this kind of vigilante bullshit all the time, I promise she’s discrete.”

“No,” he repeats, his grip tightening around Foggy’s wrist, and that’s actually starting to hurt a little, ow.

“Dude, not to overstate the obvious, but you got shot. You need medical attention,” Foggy snaps and his grip tightens even more.

“Can’t compromise,” he rasps, “my identity.”

“Oh my fucking god, she’s not going to care that you’re Bruce Wayne!” Foggy snaps and the grip releases in surprise. He takes the opportunity to snatch his hand away.

“Uhhhhhhhhhh,” Batman says, and the voice modulator is really not helping him this time.

“God, I’m going to get your kid. This is so not my problem,” Foggy snaps, making his way towards the front door, Batman makes a half hearted effort to stop him, but he barely gets off the couch before he’s collapsing back down.

“Which kid do you want, they’re like all here?” Foggy says.

“I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Batman rasps.

Foggy rolls his eyes. “Alright fine, I will call my journalist friend Karen and I will get Clark Kent’s number from her. Isn’t he, like, faster than a speeding bullet? He can be here in a jiff I’m sure.”

Batman opens his mouth and then firmly closes it, and Foggy feels the same incredibly smug rush of joy that he gets when he trips up a witness on the stand. “Don’t, don’t...don’t call Clark.”

“Deal,” Foggy says, throwing the first aid kit at him. “Now don’t die, I’m going next door.”

Batman lies back down, and Foggy can’t be certain, but he’s pretty sure he looks more off put at Foggy knowing the name of his boyfriend than he does about _having been shot_. God, you know one vigilante you know them all.

It takes a long minute before anyone answers the door to Foggy’s knocking, the faint sounds of music still coming from Tim’s apartment, and Foggy’s too upset about Bruce Wayne currently ruining his perfectly fine IKEA couch by bleeding out on it to mind whatever nonsense his children and friends are up to.

“Hey,” Tim says, face barely peeking through the door, and god that sure does not bode well. “Sorry, are we being too loud?”

“You need to come with me,” Foggy says.

“We can turn it— er, what?”

“You need to come with me. Or actually it doesn’t really need to be you, it can be one of your other siblings, maybe not Damian cause he’s like, what, ten? But one of you, even the one of you who definitely died a while back, I don’t care I just need one of you.”

“Uhhhhhh,” Tim says.

Foggy sees his chance and he takes it, he may not be fast or strong or have freaky ninja senses, but he has the element of surprise on his side when he pushes past Tim into the apartment.

“No, no no,” Tim says, right on his heels as Foggy gets to the end of the hall where the apartment opens up into an open concept living area, Damian, Dick, Jason, and Stephanie all clustered around a dude tied to a chair while Fall Out Boy plays from a wireless dock nearby.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Stephanie blurts, despite the fact that she literally has a piece of pipe in her hands.

“Oh my god,” Foggy says, covering his view with his hand. “I’m not seeing this, I’m not seeing any of this because that would make me a witness to this crime but I have not seen or heard anything.”

The group shifts slightly, clearly thrown off by his reaction as Foggy continues, still casting his gaze down and away. “Look, I know all about your other family business, and it doesn’t really matter how or why right now, but your dad just got shot and is currently bleeding out in my apartment and refusing medical attention, so can one of you please come and try and talk some sense into him?”

There’s a long stretch of silence and then, “I thought you said this dude was just some lawyer?” Jason says.

“He is!” Tim protests. “I mean he’s well-connected sure but, I had no idea— ”

“ —Guys!” Foggy snaps. “Did you miss the part where _your father_ got _shot_.”

“I mean he’s not my father, that’d be super weird,” Stephanie says quietly.

“He could be lying,” Tim says.

“He’s _not_ lying,” Damian says very seriously, staring up at Foggy, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Alright, cool, whatever,” Foggy says, throwing his hands up. “No rush or anything. Take your time to decide.”

“Dick, you go,” Tim says.

“I’m not leaving Jason in charge.”

“Stephanie can handle it, can’t you?”

“Oh real nice Richard,” Jason snaps. “I’m not gonna do anything you wouldn’t.”

“I’ll go,” Damian offers.

“No, Damian you stay here, Tim you go,” Dick says. “It’s your building, it will look the least suspicious on the hallway security cameras.

Oh fuck, Foggy hadn’t even considered that.

“I mean, I can just wipe them later,” Tim says, but he raises his hands when Dick gives him a look. “Fine, fine, I’ll go.”

Foggy bites back a comment and ushers Tim in front of him and leading him back towards his apartment.

For all his jackassery, Foggy has to admit he’s pretty impressed to find Bruce Wayne sitting up on the couch, his cowl helmet thing on the floor beside him, stitching himself back together. There’s a bloody bullet sitting on the coffee table beside a nice bottle of Polish vodka Foggy had been saving for a special occasion.

“That was a wedding gift,” Foggy bemoans as Tim rushes past him towards his father.

“You said you had it under control!” Tim says.

“I did,” Bruce Wayne says very calmly.

“Right, so under control you got _shot_.”

Bruce gives his son a look. “Unexpected variables. I wasn’t expecting The Defenders.”

Foggy groans, The Defenders was the name the papers had given to Luke, Jessica, Matt and sometimes Danny Rand if he did something actually helpful for once. Matt hated it because he couldn’t stand the concept that Daredevil was part of a team, that he had to be responsible for other people. Foggy hated it because it sounded like the name of some band his dad would have CDs for in his car and he’d have to listen to them on road trips and eventually they’d make a jukebox musical that he’d have to go see for father’s day or his dad’s birthday because he was such a big fan.

Alright, so Matt’s reason was more valid, but still. It wasn’t a good name.

“Alright, variables aside, why are you _here_ exactly,” Tim asks, which to be fair is an incredibly valid question, just as Matt decides to burst through the barely-holding-on door.

Say what you will about Matt Murdock but he does have almost comically bad timing. If he didn’t have the whole heightened senses thing already happening, he could totally have claimed that as his super power.

“Batman!” Matt rasps in his Daredevil Voice™ and were the situation not so dire Foggy would find that absolutely hilarious.

Tim looks up at Foggy. “Uhhhhh?”

Matt stops a few feet from the couch. “Who is this?”

“This is Tim,” Foggy says. “He’s Red Robin and he’s our next door neighbor.”

Tim looks between the two of them for a long second, and Foggy can practically see the pieces click together in his mind. “You’re _married_ to Daredevil.”

“You’re dating Batgirl, buddy, this is a pot to kettle situation.”

“But you said your husband was blind?” Tim says. “That’s a really shitty ableist cover.”

“You told him I’m _blind?_ ” Matt snaps.

“Oh well if he’s actually blind, that’s fine,” Tim says.

“Can we all please focus on the issue at hand,” Foggy says, feeling like the only adult in the vigilante daycare center that has become his apartment.

“I’m fine,” Bruce Wayne says, and Matt seems to notice him for the first time, cocking his head as the voice must click.

“No,” Matt says. “No that’s not possible.”

“Believe it, babe,” Foggy says, flopping down in a chair.

“Do you think you could walk?” Tim says. “We should maybe move him to my apartment?”

“You wanna move him in the costume?” Foggy asks, skeptical.

Tim shrugs. “We could take off the recognizable parts first. Besides, I can wipe the tape later.”

“Did you know about this?” Matt says, coming over to speak softly into Foggy’s ear.

“You know I can’t take you seriously when you have that stupid thing on,” Foggy says, and then with a sigh after Matt hesitates. “They already know we’re married, it’s not going to be that hard for them to backtrack and figure out who you are.”

“No, it’s not that,” Matt says, holding up a gloved finger. “There’s something wrong with him.”

“Well I’ll say. He’s a billionaire who dresses up like a bat and fights crime for fun, not that you’re really allowed to judge him for that in your glass house.”

“No, no, there’s something wrong with his heart,” Matt says, and he’s just about to move closer when Bruce’s eyes roll back into his head and he starts convulsing.

“Bruce! Bruce!” Tim cries, shaking him by the shoulder.

Foggy’s on his feet before he can even think about it, Matt crouched down with his head to Bruce Wayne’s chest, which is still heaving wildly.

“They must have coated the bullets,” Matt says.

Tim and Foggy exchange a glance before Tim goes running for the door. “I’m on it!”

Matt goes very still for a long second, and then turns to Foggy, unamused. “Who do they have tied up in that apartment?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s one of the guys who were giving you a hard time tonight who can hopefully tell us what exactly tall, dark and handsome has in his system,” Foggy says rubbing a hand over his face. “Look Bruce Wayne is probably poisoned and unconscious on our couch, can we just deal with one thing at a time?”

“Fair enough,” Matt says, then turns back to looking seriously down at Bruce Wayne. “His heart rate is slowing down.”

“I’m going to guess that’s bad,” Foggy says, and then more seriously. “Hey, are Luke and Jessica okay?”

Matt nods. “They’re fine. Jessica was a bit shaken up on the message she left me, takes a lot to shake her up. But I don’t think they’ll be bothering anymore, what’s the term now, people with abilities? Metahumans?”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Foggy says, reaching for Matt’s hand over their coffee table, ignoring the bloody bullet. He can feel the solid outline of Matt’s wedding ring under his glove, reassuring in the face of their unconscious billionaire.

“Oh, they got it,” Matt says, perking up a hot second before Tim comes bursting back through the door.

“We got it!” Tim says and Matt gives Foggy a little head tilt and smirk as if to say ‘I told you so,’ “We got it, but we should really get him back to, uh, home base.”

Matt shakes his head, and god Foggy really wishes he’d take his helmet off. It looks a little silly even when he’s with some other costumed do-gooders, but when he’s the only person with one in a fully lit apartment it just looks absurd. “We don’t have the time to get him back to Jersey.”

“Don’t worry,” Tim said. “Dick called him a ride.”

There’s a sharp metallic tang in the air and a crackling and then suddenly there’s another person standing in Foggy’s living room.

“Hey guys,” The Flash says. “You called?”

“This isn’t a bad plan, but for the record, you can’t just keep throwing vigilantes at all your problems,” Foggy says, and the Flash turns to look at him, his eyes going wide.

“Hey- _a_ ,” he says, his voice cracking up a few octaves. “Hi, hello. Um, you are?”

“This is that lawyer,” Tim says. “The one I told you to email?”

The Flash’s eyes go wide behind his helmet mask thing. “Oh? OH! Um, yes, hello Mr. Nelson. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I mean, it’s, uh, obviously terrible circumstances. But still it’s uh, a pleasure...To meet you!”

“Okay,” Foggy says, the Flash still frozen to the spot and staring at him.

“Dude, kinda time sensitive,” Tim says.

“Right, sorry,” he says, coming around the side of the couch, and after a sort of pathetic attempt to heave Bruce onto his shoulders, Tim comes over to help him.

“Oh my god, what is he, like solid muscle?” Flash grunts, as he manages to get Bruce over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

“You gonna be able to get him back to Gotham like that?” Matt asks skeptically.

“For sure, for sure,” Flash says, even as Bruce starts to slip a little bit. “It’s all gonna be easy breezy lemon-squeezy.”

Foggy looks over at Tim who just shrugs, and then he’s gone with another crackling of electric static, a sharp metallic tang left in the air.

“Uh, well I guess I should probably get out of your hair and um, go help with,” Tim gestures over his shoulder in place of explaining just exactly what they’re planning to do with the guy in his apartment. “Thanks for all your help though, uh, I’ll talk to my dad about the couch.”

Foggy looks over his shoulder at the already drying rusty brown stain on his couch. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Marci take the red couch after all.

“Have a good night,” Tim says with a stilted sort of politeness, looking between him and Matt. And good lord isn’t that a fucking picture, Foggy in an old pair of jeans and his Columbia sweater, Matt still in full Daredevil get-up.

Foggy locks the front door behind Tim and resists the urge to just collapse against it.

“Uh, why does the Flash need a lawyer?” Matt says after a long moment.

“Really, that’s the question you want to start with?” Foggy says, grabbing some paper towel from the kitchen to throw out the bullet that’s still sitting on their coffee table. “God, I really wish he hadn’t used the good vodka. Given that his fingers were bloody and the bullet was poisoned I feel like we should probably just dump the rest of this.”

“Foggy.”

“I mean, maybe we can save it, if we like, sanitize the bottle first.”

“ _Foggy_.”

“Yes Matthew,” Foggy says finally. “And if you’re going to yell at me, can you please change first because I really cannot take you seriously in that outfit. I know it’s part of your aesthetic and it’s not like you _need_ them, but the lack of eyeholes is very off-putting.”

Matt pulls off his mask, his mouth twisting exasperatedly. “Are we going to talk about the fact that in the three days I’ve gone, you’ve suddenly discovered the identities of ten vigilantes? Including one who lives right next door.”

“It’s not _ten_ , there’s no way it was that many,” Foggy counts on his fingers, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Barry Allen, Tim, Stephanie, Dick, Damian, Jason. “It’s only eight, don’t exaggerate.”

Matt runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth. “Eight, sorry, my mistake.”

“Look, it’s been a long few days and someone almost just died on our couch and you were gone and I missed you, and can we please just go to bed and talk about it in the morning?”

Matt pulls off his gloves and drops them on the coffee table, letting out a long exhale, and then after a long moment, “Alright, okay, that seems. That seems pretty fair.”

He comes around the other side of the coffee table, and Foggy lets himself be drawn in and relax into Matt’s arms, even if he’s still in the rest of his ridiculous Dominatrix armor.

“I just wanna have a shower and go to bed,” Foggy breathes into Matt’s shoulder as Matt runs his fingers through the hair at the nape of Foggy’s neck.

“I know, sweetheart.”

“Maybe we could have sex in the shower first?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Fair,” Foggy concedes, and in the end they don’t even make it to the shower, Foggy unable to resist the siren call of the bed once he’s in their room, falling back into their stupid Egyptian cotton million thread count sheets and pulled deep into the undertow of sleep.

It takes a few hours, and more than a few side tangents and several mixed drinks courtesy of the replacement even fancier vodka that had been waiting for them outside their front door this morning. ( _Thanks for all your help last night, apologies for helping myself and Mazel Tov on your recent nuptials. Will be in touch about replacing the couch - B.W. (and Clark)_ ) But Foggy finally manages to get Matt fully caught up on most of the saga of the last few days by about noon.

“So what now,” Matt says, his head in Foggy’s lap, as Foggy cards his fingers through his hair lazily. Both of them affectionately melted together on their bed, half tipsy.

“Oh god, fuck if I know,” Foggy says. “I guess we just keep it to ourselves and hope for honor among thieves.”

“Are you going to take on whatshisname, the Flash, as a client?” Matt says.

“Barry? I don’t know, he seemed a bit, uh, off to me. Like his email was super stilted but then he was very weird in person. And yes, I know it was a weird situation, but _still_.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah he was practically tripping over his words and he kept staring at me.”

“Foggy!” Matt laughs. “You are so clueless sometimes, he was totally into you. He thought you were hot.”

“What!?” Foggy says, sitting up farther, Matt forced out of his lap, laughing. “He did _not_.”

“Hey, which of us has the ‘freaky ninja senses.’ Heart rate up, increased blood flow to face, increased saliva production— ”

“ —How can you even _tell_ that his saliva production was up-”

“ —He thought you were super hot. As the world’s leading expert in self-diagnosing this condition in myself, I recognized the signs,” Matt says, pushing himself up onto his elbow and angling for a kiss.

“Alright fine, we can take the case,” Foggy says, Matt’s lips so close he can feel him exhale ever so softly. “But if it’s a paperwork nightmare, I’m putting you in charge.”

Matt flops back groaning, and Foggy laughs, following him down as Matt reaches up for his face, Foggy kissing him until he stops groaning. Or well, at least until he stops groaning about paperwork.

Ironically, the case Barry wanted them to work on actually turns out to be not that complicated. He’d explained the whole thing over coffee — well Foggy had gotten coffee, Barry had gotten some kind of bright green frappuccino with a whipped cream dollop so large the top didn’t fit on properly — at a crowded Starbucks in midtown.

It had mostly boiled down to Barry’s boyfriend, Victor, being dead on paper which was turning out to be a problem, not surprisingly, in signing a lease.

(“So how did he end up legally dead?”

“Oh he um, he was in an explosion and his dad did some experimental stuff that’s top secret so I can’t tell you, but basically um, he’s a robot now. Or like, he’s a person, who’s a robot. A cyborg. That’s the term for it, sorry, duh, I’m sure you know that. I swear it’s not that weird though cause it’s really just like, very, very high tech prosthetics. He’s like a real person, like a _real person_ if you uh, catch my— anyways, sorry what was I _saying_?”)

It’s going to be a bit of a pain, but it’s nothing that Foggy didn’t deal with when they revived Matt, and he feels pretty confident when he leaves the cafe that they’ll be able to have this one wrapped up and put to bed within seven to ten business days.

Matt’s still at their brand new offices, back in Hell’s Kitchen at Matt’s insistence, just because they’re farther uptown wasn’t an excuse to ignore their roots. And Foggy agreed that it was nice to be back at home with a more familiar clientele (even if he hadn’t totally managed to shake the vigilante lawyer label yet, not least of all because his vigilante client roster had doubled thanks to recent events).

Foggy’s not heading back to the office though, since their brand new couch, courtesy of one Bruce Wayne, was set to be delivered this afternoon.

Karen was miffed that Foggy couldn’t seem to stop accepting gifts from the loved ones (or ex-loved ones) of people she was into, but he thinks that actually managing to snag a date with Pam will help soothe her wounds quicker than usual. As will her new joint investigative journalism venture with one Clark Kent, who, if Bruce Wayne is to be believed, is a huge fan of hers.

The whole thing feels tied up in a very neat bow, which is why Foggy almost isn’t surprised when he walks into to the lobby of his building in time to see Tim getting off the elevator with Peter Parker, the two of them talking enthusiastically about something.

“ —Yeah it’s a date!” Peter says, “Well double date, ha. I’ll text Ned and let him know right away.”

“Sounds good,” Tim says, and the two of them exchange a little bro hand clasp-shoulder bump.

“And hey, say thanks to Stephanie for letting me borrow her notes, I was just _so sick_ the other day, 24 hour flu you know, just couldn’t get to class.”

Tim nods. “Oh god, I think it’s going around, that’s why I wasn’t in class the other day.”

Peter makes a sympathetic little noise which turns into a kind of squeak when he turns and sees Foggy. “Oh! Hi Mr. Nelson!”

“Hey Peter,” Foggy says. “Keeping out of trouble?”

“Hahaha you know it!” Peter says sheepishly, and then ducks around him and out of the building, Tim looking between the two of them suspiciously.

“That’s cute that you two are friends,” Foggy says, as he steps into the waiting elevator, Tim following behind him, his boat shoes squeaking on the marble floor of the lobby. “It’s nice to know people with shared life experience.”

Tim frowns at him. “What?”

“Just, like, having someone who gets the whole...” Foggy makes a vague hand gesture that he hopes encapsules the teen vigilante experience. “Skipping class cause you have ‘the flu’?”

There’s a long prolonged pause, Tim looking at him sideways. “I’m sorry, are you telling me that Peter Parker, the guy from my Astronomy 101 class that I befriended because my dad told me I needed friends who aren’t actively fighting crime is one of your _special clients?_ ”

“Oh fuck,” Foggy says unthinkingly. “You totally didn’t know he was Spider-Man did you?”

“Peter Parker is _WHO NOW_!?” Tim exclaims.

Whoops.

Okay, so maybe Foggy didn’t tie that bow as neatly as he thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Pod_Together Mods and AlannaLioness!
> 
> Reader's Note: unending love to phonecallfromgod and youshallnotfind it so. it was a pleasure working with you.  
> To the mods, thank you for your dedication and hard work. And for putting up with all my wifi issues.


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